


Anastomosis

by joisbishmyoga



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Akumatized Ladybug, Gen, Reveal Fic, Timebreaker AU, oops I added another chapter, sick kwami, slight and explained OOC, surprise twin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:53:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8152981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisbishmyoga/pseuds/joisbishmyoga
Summary: Whoever she was, she somehow couldn't do anything but sit on her-- their-- chaise, eyes on her feet and Tikki clinging to her trembling fingers-- while her... twin?... paced the floor ranting.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [time ≠ water](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7954243) by [isadorator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isadorator/pseuds/isadorator). 
  * Inspired by [that girl's in love with you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8041615) by [clairelutra (exosolarmoon)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra). 



> I read. I wibbled. I patched together my cracked heart and opened a new word file.

Marinette the elder?  Mari?  She didn't know how to think of herself now, could barely look at her other-self and her other's wide, sympathetic eyes that couldn't understand how something sharp-toothed and burning acid had clamped down on her heart when the adrenaline rush of the fight drained away.  
  
Whoever she was, she somehow couldn't do anything but sit on her-- their-- chaise, eyes on her feet and Tikki clinging to her trembling fingers-- while her... twin?... paced the floor ranting.  Catastrophizing, Alya had called it once, but what was there to catastrophize about anymore?  The worst _had_ happened.  Chat...  
  
Wasn't dead.  Anymore.  Even though he'd gone transparent and hollow-shell-flimsy under her hands.  He _wasn't_ gone anymore.  
  
He couldn't be allowed to keep _doing_ this.  Next time there might not be a convenient rewind button, and then what would they do?  
  
Her breath hitched, eyes burning, as the image of an open grave -- of black armor and blond hair sinking away, still, too still, no not her happy, larger-than-life kitten, he wasn't meant to be still and quiet and cold...  
  
Footsteps heavy on the stairs.  Marinette -- the other one, the loud one -- squeaked and yanked her up by one arm, all but throwing her up onto their loft bed.  Marinette -- the elder one, blinking back tears and still reeling as reality hit once again -- quickly shoved their cat pillow forward and hid behind it, in the back corner where hopefully their parents wouldn't notice her.  
  
Loud knocking.  The trapdoor clunked, and Marinette-the-other barely had a chance to start "Mama--?" before  
  
"Where is she?!" Maman asked, something terrible in her voice.  "Marinette, please, where is she?!"  
  
"Who--?"  
  
"The other Ladybug," Papa said, quieter and just as wrecked, and Marinette-the-elder went ice cold.  Why would they think--?  Why were they looking--?  Here?  For her?  
  
"Sweetheart.  We know."  Maman... knew?  They knew?  They couldn't know, they just couldn't, Papillon would target them and then he'd find out and Chat vanishing in her arms still and cold and sinking into the dead ground no no no no no--  "We figured out you were Ladybug months ago.  Now _where is our other daughter_?!"  
  
Marinette bit into the cat pillow to hide the sob that caught in her throat.  It was all for nothing, then.  Her parents weren't safe.  No one was safe.  No one...  
  
"... can't have just left her there... on her own... our little girl..."  Movement at the foot of the bed.  Large and warm.  "Oh, sweetheart," Papa said heavily.  He crawled in closer and pulled the cat pillow out of her arms, leaving nothing but air between them.  Marinette curled in deeper on herself, and he rested one large hand on her shoulder, the way he had so many times before.  "We'll figure something out.  But we couldn't just pretend not to know, not if it left one of our little girls homeless and alone."  
  
Well... put like that...  But how would they explain a second Marinette, when everybody -- when all of Paris -- knew only Alix and Ladybug had doubled?  
  
She barely registered Papa pulling her up and hugging her close.  "We might have to homeschool one of you for a while, and get a second bed in here, but we won't leave you to handle this alone.  You're our baby."  
  
Marinette burst into tears against his chest.


	2. Chapter 2

The weekend passed in a blur of movies and knocking into her new... sister, both literally and metaphorically.  They would only vaguely remember it in disjointed sense-memories for the rest of their lives: a pile of sleeping bags a la sleepover in the living room, sawdust in their bedroom and a second mattress for their new double-wide loft, replacement toothbrushes and a new razor in the bathroom.  
  
They flipped a coin for names, with the elder winning Rinette and the younger Mari, and voted Mari for school based mostly on Maman's recommendation.  Which.  Well.  Rinette really wasn't in any shape to pretend she was okay yet anyway.  
  
And then Maman, after setting out dinner for four -- with beverages shifted so no one was sitting in their usual spot anymore, so neither Mari nor Rinette would have to feel like the "fake" one -- said, "Tomorrow should be a good day to tell Alya."  
  
Mari and Rinette dropped their forks in a simultaneous clatter.  "What?!  No, we can't--" they chorused.  
  
Maman's calm glance snapped their mouths shut.  "Were you going to just never have her visit again?" she asked.  "Or switch off days and pretend to have forgotten half the things you do from now on?"  
  
They really hadn't thought that far.  
  
"But, the Ladyblog," Mari said weakly.  
  
"She'll figure it out.  Only Ladybug and Alix doubled," Rinette finished.  
  
"And then she'll post about it and Papillon will go straight for us!"  
  
"For _all_ of us."  Rinette swallowed against the lump in her throat.  "And Chat will get here barely in time to take the hit and he'll _die_."  Again.  
  
Papa laid one large hand on his daughters', catching Mari's out of the air and unwrapping Rinette's white-knuckled grip on her fork.  "If Alya doesn't put your friendship and safety first, she's not a good person."  His eyes glinted.  "And we will explain before she gets her phone back, so her excitement doesn't overrule her judgement.  You aren't doing this alone, sweethearts."  
  
"We should probably invite Nino and Adrien, too," Maman said more lightly, breaking the mood.  "You might not have sleepovers with Nino anymore, but that's not from growing apart... and of course, someday you'll have sleepovers with Adrien, and it's only fair that he knows the situation first, right?"  
  
"MAMAN!"  
  
  
-0-0-0  
  
  
"--ou're kidding, right?" Adrien was saying as Mari skidded into the classroom just a couple minutes before the bell.  He was turned around in his seat, smiling casually up at Alya.  "Chat Noir is _way_ more excited than you.  I mean, didn't you see him at the plaza?  He was all," Adrien straightened up, clasped his hands together, and gave the ceiling a joyful Christmas-catalog grin that made him all but glow in the school's buzzing fluorescents, "' _This is the happiest day of my life_.'"  
  
"Dude's got a point," Nino said.  
  
"That's because he's in love with her."  Alya's gaze caught on Mari.  Quickly, she added, "Chat is, I mean.  Not Adrien.  Man that would be awkward.  Hi Marinette!  Can you believe it?!  Two Ladybugs!"  
  
Mari tried to smile.  "Yeah.  I was there, remember?"  
  
"Do you think they'll work together?  I can't wait to get pictures, it's going to be a-maz-ing!" Alya hugged her phone to her heart, grinning toothily.  "Papillon is going to get his ass kicked _so hard_."  
  
Mari bit her lip.  There was a second Tikki... but she and Rinette and her Tikki hadn't discussed anything miraculous-related yet.  Ladybug and Chat Noir were supposed to be about balance, how could that work if you suddenly doubled one side of the scale?  
  
Thinking about it wasn't going to get Maman's invitation out any faster, though.  
  
_I'm Ladybug, I'm Ladybug and brave and confident and I CAN'T DO THIS-_ -  "Hey, do you think you guys could come over after school?" Mari's traitorous mouth said.  
  
"All three of us?" Alya asked.  Mari nodded, so tightly her neck joints felt like they should squeak.  "Yeah, I'm good.  You?"  She glanced at the boys.  
  
Adrien was all lit up and faintly relieved.  Nino just grinned.  "Sure.  My man Adrien here's got the day off for once.  Lucky!"  
  
"... Yeah.  Lucky."  
  
Mari barely heard a word the teacher said for the rest of that class, or the next one.  Late in second period, though -- shortly after she latest she liked to sleep in, in fact -- screaming began outside.  
  
_No no no not now!_  
  
The problem with evacuation plans at College Dupont was that so many students had been akumatized, any orderly escape or concealment would be automatically derailed by the akuma knowing exactly how it worked.  The lack of order usually worked in Mari's favor, and today was no exception-- she let Alya lose track of her while the blogger rushed to the windows to get a good vantage point, and let everybody else assume she was sticking with Alya, and sidled out the door and into the girls' room.  
  
"Tikki, spots on!"  
  
Leaving the bathroom, she found Chat Noir already crouched at the corner of a hallway that opened to the balcony over the courtyard.  He beckoned her over, clawed hand low to the ground, and she crept up next to him without getting so much as a flirtatious glance.  
  
One look into the courtyard was more than enough to explain why.  
  
The akuma was a petite, dark-haired girl in tatters.  Unbrushed hair, mascara drawing splotchy teartracks down from her butterfly mask... a telltale black suit with red spots, shredded as if by someone with very large claws.  A very familiar Chat Noir doll in her arms, its glass eyes glinting akuma-violet.  
  
Rinette.  
  
"I think we found the problem with a second Ladybug," Ladybug murmured.  
  
"It was only a few minutes," Chat said plantively.  "How--?"  
  
"Hers died."  
  
"... Oh.  Right."  He rubbed the back of his head and grinned sheepishly at her, like he'd somehow forgotten.  Maybe he had.  Rinette would've only had the chance to tell him during the fight with the Timebreakers, after all.  
  
The akuma lifted her head, and eyes gone bright against all the black fixed themselves to Chat.  "I am Failsafe," she announced, then scoffed bitterly.  " _Failsafe_!  As if there was anything good about it."  Her grip tightened around the doll, eyes burning.  Her gaze didn't so much as flicker as something moved behind her in the courtyard -- two people.  Ivan rushed for the door, hauling Mylene with him, his body between her and Failsafe.  Failsafe snatched her Chat doll up by the head, sweeping it over her shoulder, and a bolt of blazing violet shot out of Chat's glass eyes.  It rolled harmlessly over Ivan and hit Mylene, sending the girl collapsing to the ground.  "You _will_ learn to stop sacrificing yourself if it's the _last thing I do_ ," Failsafe spat.  A second shot felled Ivan.  "You _stupid cat_."  
  
"Don't get between us!" Ladybug yelped, leaping away from Chat as the doll's head came up to fire at them.  
  
The ensuing fight was short and athletic.  The only saving grace in it -- since akuma were far stronger and more acrobatic than regular people, and being Ladybug only made that far, far worse -- was that Failsafe flatly refused to shoot at Chat, except for once when he landed on a basketball hoop between her and Alya, filming from the balcony above.  It took two shots to down Alya, two shots in which Ladybug was able to dive from cover and roll straight into Failsafe's legs.  
  
Chat caught the akuma before she could do more than get up to hands and knees, scooping her half up off the ground and tucking her face into his shoulder.  His arms pinned her biceps to her torso.  "I'm alive," he murmured, one clawed hand stroking her head.  "Breathe."  
  
Ladybug snatched the doll from Failsafe's shock-slackened grip, tore off its little leather tail, and cleansed the akuma that popped out.  If she had a bit of extra snap to her wrist when she threw the yo-yo, and an edge to her voice when she waved the butterfly away... well.  It was better than either being shaky.  
  
Chat stayed perfectly still, kneeling with Failsafe tucked in close.  All the fight had gone out of her; all that was left was to generate a Lucky Charm and undo the damage.  Which was just a handful of people collapsed -- Ivan and Mylene near the door, Alya up on the balcony, and probably a dozen or so outside on the street where Ladybug couldn't see them -- and a bent basketball hoop.  
  
Casting Miraculous Ladybug would detransform Rinette, though.  
  
"Chat.  Can you keep her hidden?"  
  
"Not for long, my Lady."  
  
Ladybug bit her lip.  This hadn't been a difficult fight... but that was because Failsafe hadn't really been _trying_.  What if she'd triggered off something else?  Something that would've overshadowed her need to not hurt her Chat?  Something that would have her tap into her Ladybug powers?  
  
What if Chat ever akumatized instead of fell under the thrall of one with mind-control powers?  
  
But right now it was down to one person -- to her partner -- discovering Rinette, versus all of Paris.  And she'd been going to reveal that much to her friends today anyway.  
  
"Come with me."  
  
Chat hefted Failsafe up, keeping the girl's face hidden against his shoulder, and followed Ladybug out.  
  
The street was indeed full of collapsed people.  Not as many as there were around lunch or before dinner, but quite a few.  They lay crumpled in stunned little piles, eyes blinking with silent panic and following Ladybug and Chat in eerie silence.  It hadn't been quite long enough for news vans to show up yet, if anybody had been able to make the call, but Ladybug could hear a not-so-distant siren closing in.  
  
"It'll be just a few minutes," she announced to the fallen, conscious people.  "Sorry for the inconvenience!"  And she lassoed a lamppost and slung herself up to the rooftops opposite the school.  Chat landed silently a moment later, retracting his baton, and she took off running like she was settling in for a long race.  Her yo-yo flew out like she was going to catch a railing on the far side of the street...  
  
... and knocked her own skylight open to drop into it.  She tucked and rolled across Rinette's mattress, set sideways against the wall that had once been their headboard, and landed on her own bed.  Chat tumbled in after, backwards, like he'd skidded past the skylight before realizing the direction had changed, and landed flat on his back with Failsafe curled up atop him.  
  
"... We're in Marinette's room."  
  
"I'd say she keeps it open as a safe place for us, but... that's not entirely accurate."  
  
Chat looked at her, then down at the widened loft and its two beds, then at Failsafe.  His eyes went wide, and gently, he shifted his shoulder away from her face, tipping her chin up with one large knuckle.  She flinched away, but not before he'd clearly seen her face.  
  
"... Marinette?"  
  
Ladybug tried a smile.  It didn't really come out very well.  "Rinette, now.  And I'm Mari."  Who knew if they'd ever get used to that.  "This is about the last way I ever thought you'd find out."  
  
Chat quirked a lopsided, similarly off grin back.  "I have to admit, I liked my ideas better.  One hundred percent more Eiffel Tower fireworks and red roses, for one."  Failsafe thumped a fist vaguely against his chest in protest, and Chat glanced down at her with a painfully tender, worried expression.  "Hey.  There you are."  
  
She mumbled something against his shoulder.  
  
"Ah, right."  Chat looked at Ladybug.  "She'd like to get out of this very unstylish akuma getup now, please.  Wash dat man right outta her hair."  And then he began humming in a deliberately overdone falsetto that got a startled, exasperated little giggle out of Failsafe.  
  
Well.  Okay then.  
  
Lucky Charm provided a ball about the same size and weight as a softball, and a gentle toss and call of "Miraculous Ladybug!" sent a swarm of magical ladybugs streaming over the doll in Ladybug's arms, then over Failsafe, up out the skylight, and out of sight.  
  
All that was left was Rinette, in their bad-day sweatpants and a Tshirt -- both of them a size too large, the pants white for ease of bleaching and the Tshirt a deep grumpy-day blue that set off its pink and silver abstract swirls nicely, because Marinette had to feel a little fashionable even when she was sick -- clinging to Chat and showing no signs of moving for a good long while.  Rinette's Tikki lay in a little woozy heap next to them, and Mari released the transformation.    
  
Her own Tikki swooped out and hovered over the other one, making comforting little sounds, as Mari slid down the ladder and put the Chat Noir doll back where it belonged.  Her hand lingered on its little plush body, the one she hadn't been able to bring herself to rip apart to get the akuma.  The charm had fixed what little damage she'd managed to do, the tail that wouldn't harm even the real Chat if it could be broken, and had restored its eyes to their vibrant green.  
  
A washcloth probably wouldn't go unappreciated right now.  There wasn't much more she could do, after all, so Mari filled her little sink with warm water and a bit of bath salts, the stress relief ones that smelled like sandalwood and rose and nothing like Chat's hint of peppery spice that reminded her oddly of tea.  Soaking and squeezing a washcloth to just be damp, she carried it and a towel up to Rinette, then just... sat close, listening to Chat's humming -- now gone more soothing than silly -- and hoping Rinette would be able to shove her away if she was unwanted.  
  
That lasted just long enough for Mari to recognize Chat's new song before noise on the stairs roused them.  
  
The trapdoor banged open, and Alya shoved herself up through.  "Marinette Dupain-Chengs!"  Both Marinettes jerked, Chat ducking for cover as they threw themselves away from cuddling him.  "Your akuma sucks!  Get down here and take your interrogations like women!"  
  
So she'd.  Um.  Kind of completely figured it out.  
  
Mari peeked over the edge of the loft.  "Hi Alya.  I hope you didn't break my door.  Did you bring--oh good, you brought Nino.  Come on up."  
  
Rinette crawled in next to her.  "... Does everybody know?"  
  
"What?"  Alya blinked, one knee up on Marinette's floor.  "No!  I faked taking a hit and cut the livestream as soon as I recognized you."  Mari stared, agape.  "And Ivan and Mylene weren't facing your way."  
  
"Everybody else was either hiding like _sane_ people," Nino mock-punched Alya in the shoulder and pushed her the rest of the way into the room, "or too far to see more than she had dark hair.  Which, Ladybug does, so yeah.  Not a lot of people at school have seen your hair down ever."  
  
"So we kinda figured you were going to tell us after school anyway," Alya said.  "That's why you invited us over, right?"  At Mari's little nod, Alya opened her arms wide.  "So get down here, girls, give me a hug and then _tell. me. everything_."  
  
"We should wait for Adrien," Nino pointed out, digging into his pocket.  "I dunno where he is, lemme give him a call..."  
  
Rinette slid down the ladder on shaky legs, and got herself caught nicely by Alya, while Nino put through the call.  
  
A moment later, Adrien's distinctive ringtone went off behind Mari.  "Kiss kiss fall in love!" it caroled in English.  Mari turned to stare in dawning horror at Rinette's bed, where Chat was still curled up hiding in the corner.  The baton just barely visible on his back... there was a pawprint blinking on the end.  "Kiss kiss fall in love!" it sang again.  
  
Oh god Chat was _Adrien_.  She'd been cuddling up to _Adrien_.  In her _bed_.  In stereo.  And Rinette was wearing their sick-day clothes which they never wore with a bra and no makeup and _oh god it was Adrien_.  
  
"... In meow defense," he said, only one eye visible behind his crossed arms, "this only happens when my kwami is being a troll."  Nino's phone fell to the floor in a clatter, barely audible under Alya's strangled hiss of ' _you've got Adrien up there?!_ ', and then Chat moved.  He didn't so much crawl as slink fluidly across the small space to poke his head out into the rest of the room, smiling nervously and ruefully.  "I guess it's a two fur pun special reveal today.  Hi Nino."  
  
"Dude.  _Dude_."  Nino gestured incomprehensibly with his hands.  " _Dude_.  I am _never watching an akuma fight again_.  I will have _ten zillion heart attacks and die_."  Chat blinked.  "Seriously!  Dude!  You thought I flipped out over a _party_ \--!  Bad enough it's Marinette out there!  I have had fifteen minutes to suppress my unchill about that!  And that there's two of them to worry about!  And Alya!  And now, dude, you too?!  All my friends are crazy people!"  
  
Mari watched Chat -- Adrien -- stare down at Nino with his grin fading into wide-eyed bemusement.  Bemewsement.  Arrgh.  "Um," she managed to say, raising one finger as all eyes snapped to her.  "Could we not have a repeat of the Bubbler?  It's been kind of a rough few days and right now I think we'd end up bubbled instead of all the adults.  To keep us out of trouble."  
  
"And make it double," Chat murmured in helpless reflex.  
  
Mari shoved him off the loft with one foot.  He landed on all fours, barely, with a startled yelp.  
  
"Too soon?" he asked.  
  
"Too _awful_.  You _dweeb_."  
  
"Your dweeb?"  Chat tilted his head cutely.  Rinette and Mari reached out to shove lightly at his head, like normal, and then _Adrien this is Adrien_ flashed through Mari's mind, and she froze and went bright red.  Rinette did the same, squeaking and jerking her arm back before she could touch Chat's hair.    
  
Chat's face fell.  
  
_Oh no no no no no no-- damage control!  Fast!  Think of something!_   "Um."  _Think of an actual something that has words in it!_   "We'll.  Um."  Rinette looked as panicked as she did.  "Have to... learn to... share?"  
  
Alya's expression did something indescribable, and Rinette clapped a hand over Alya's mouth.  It didn't help: Alya promptly caught Rinette by both wrists, said "This is for your own good," then tipped her right over onto Chat's lap.  
  
They stared at each other, wide-eyed, and Chat's ring began beeping furiously.  Mari ignored it, feeling a blush rising in her cheeks that was only outshone by Rinette's and Chat's, what little of his was visible under his mask.  Adrien... liked her.  Them.  He _really liked them_.  
  
Mari was so distracted watching that it was a shock when Nino and Alya grabbed her by the arms and pulled her out of the loft.  She ended up on Chat's lap too, plastered against Rinette and pushing her higher on his stomach, and oooooh that was a lot of. Um. Thigh muscle.  Under her.  And if she got off Alya would just dump her right back in place and that might hurt Adrien!  Um.  Right.  
  
Chat swallowed.  "Plagg," he said weakly, "Claws in."  
  
His black suit bubbled up off him in a flash of green light, and out popped a little black kwami with cat ears.  "You are so gross," it declared, fluttering in irritated little circles.  "Teenagers!  Gooshy smelly hormones everywhere--"  
  
"Oooooooh my gosh what is that?!" Alya squealed.  
  
Plagg darted up into her face.  "' _That_ '," he said, "is me.  A kwami.  Tiny cat god of destruction, bad ideas, and ridiculous lovelorn kittens."  
  
"Does Ladybug have one too?  Where is it?  He?"  Alya paused.  "She?"  
  
Red fluttered in the corner of Mari's vision.  Tikki, half-carrying Tikki, flew slowly over from Marinette's sink and vanity.  There was a washcloth wrapped around the other Tikki like a blanket, with one corner damp and folded on top of her head.  The other Tikki winced a little at the light, and tugged the damp cloth lower over her eyes.  
  
"Hi," Mari's Tikki said.  "It's she, please."  She glanced at her partner.  "Er.  They, now.  It's nice to meet you, Alya, Nino."  
  
Alya stifled her squeal, probably because it was obvious the other Tikki had a nasty headache.  "And what are you guys the goddesses of?" she asked, as Mari's Tikki helped Rinette's Tikki sink into Alya's cupped hands.  
  
"... Creation, good luck, dealing with Plagg's bad ideas, and apparently teenagers who moon over celebrity friends," Tikki answered slowly.  "So I'm wondering right now just how good that luck really is."  
  
"And here we thought Jeanne of Arc's crush on her god was a bit much..." Rinette's Tikki muttered into her washcloth.  
  
"TIKKI!" Mari and Rinette yelped in stereo.  Oh god Adrien had heard that.  They were going to die.  Just DIE.  Why couldn't her powers include the ground swallowing her up.  Why.  
  
Maybe Adrien wouldn't register what Tikki actually meant!  Yes!  
  
"I don't even know why we're surprised anymore," Mari's Tikki continued, far too calmly to actually be okay with... well, anything.  "Every single Ladybug I've had has kept pictures of their crush as best they can."  She sighed.  "Even the Islamic one a while back, when depicting real things was strictly forbidden, she had his name in beautiful calligraphy on her astrolabe."  Then, just when Mari was starting to hope she'd get away scot-free, Tikki added, "I rather miss Marinette's collage of Adrien.  It was so tastefully done."  
  
That was it.  She was going to kill her kwami.  After she and Rinette unburied their faces from each other.  "Why, why are you saying this stuff Tikki."  
  
"You're supposed to be the nice one," Rinette moaned.  
  
"I..." Tikki paused, almost audibly blinked, "... don't know?  I kind of feel funny... I'm not sure being doubled is good for me."  
  
"It's probably that one of you got akumatized and the other didn't," Plagg said easily.  "You're trying to be hungover and not at the same time."  
  
"Oh.  Right.  I should've thought of that."  
  
"And I just told you why you wouldn't.  I deserve cheese.  Rewardez-moi."  
  
Rinette's Tikki went a terrible shade of ashy brown.  "Please don't.  The smell..."  An even more telltale sound thumped thickly from her throat, and the awkwardness was forgotten in the scramble to get off Adrien as Alya rushed Rinette's Tikki to the sink.  
  
Rinette took Tikki carefully from Alya after the first few heaves died down, and Mari turned on the sink water and opened the drain.  There wasn't actually much to wash away -- they hadn't had a chance to feed either Tikki yet, and kwami apparently digested much differently from humans -- but what was there glowed with an eerie reddish light, just enough to distinguish it from water.  Plus the sound of the tap covered Tikki's next bout of sickness.  
  
"Um."  Mari stiffened at Adrien's voice just behind her shoulder.  He was tall enough he could see this awful mess with poor Tikki.  But all he said was, "Do your parents know?  I could take Plagg down to eat," he offered, "and bring back, um, tea or something..."  
  
"Yeah," Rinette said distractedly, "but they're at work--"  
  
"We got this."  Alya plucked Plagg right out of the air over the sink.  " _You've_ got a hot date with a video camera," she told the kwami.  "We'll send Nino back up with ginger ale."  The trapdoor thunked, two sets of footsteps clattering down it (with Plagg demanding cheese the whole way), and they were alone.  
  
Adrien edged in around Mari, closer to the sink.  "First time dealing with a sick kwami?" he asked.  
  
All Mari could manage was, "Um.  Yeah?" but Rinette added worriedly, "They don't get sick, really, Tikki said."  
  
"Cat," Adrien explained.  "Hairballs."  Then he reached out towards Tikki, the pads of his index fingers settling just above the spots on the sides of her head.  "If she's like Plagg it'll help to rub gently right about here..."  Tikki ulped, but somehow less horribly than before, as Adrien's hands worked in circles.  The movement was clearly exaggerated so they could see what he was doing: where his fingers met Tikki's flesh, there didn't seem to be much motion at all.  "It's pretty much the same thing people instinctively do for headaches, but kwami are wired different."  
  
Tikki was, indeed, starting to brighten again in Rinette's hands.  
  
"Here, you try."  And Adrien left off, giving Mari access.  
  
Mari gingerly put her hands where Adrien's had been (!), pressing lightly and trying to do the same slow circles.    
  
Adrien covered her hands with his own after a moment.  "Tiny movements," he explained, oblivious to Mari's sudden blush.  He slid his thumbs into her palms, his fingers aligning over hers as he pulled her touch to be even lighter, the movements even smaller.  "We're so much bigger than they are."  
  
Adrien's hands weren't much bigger than Mari's.  Broader, but she had long hands, fingers thickened by pinprick wounds and constant work-- his were perfectly proportioned, soft and warm.  You'd never think he held a handful of pure destruction on a regular basis, never climbed towering buildings with nothing but magical claws bearing his weight...  
  
Mari's Tikki chirred from atop Rinette's head.  "You'll make a great dad someday."  
  
Adrien went bright red.  "I..."  He focused deeply on Rinette's Tikki, not so much as glancing up as he quietly said, "... I would really like that, actually."  
  
It sounded like something he'd _actually thought about_.  A lot.  "Kids, huh?" Rinette murmured.  Something in her voice had darkened, saddened... her Chat would never have those kids.    
  
Mari squeezed one of Adrien's thumbs and slipped free, replacing her hand with one of Rinette's.  "Really?  How, um, how many?" she asked, just as softly, trying to pretend like she didn't maybe have personal interest in the answer.  
  
She probably failed at that, because Adrien somehow managed to blush even brighter.  "I dunno," he hedged.  "Three?  Being an only child is... not really..." He seemed to remember who he was talking to, in that Marinette had been an only child until the day before yesterday.  "I don't think I would want to stop at just one," he tried instead.  "But four's kind of a bit much to ask of... their mother.  And two is... there's really not a lot of games that can be played well with two?"  
  
Three.  He wanted _three_.  Mari and Rinette sighed dreamily.  "Three sounds perfect."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/Ns -  
> \- Adrien totally watches Ouran High School Host Club and we can blame Tamaki for Flirt Noir, hence the ringtone from its opening theme  
> \- the Tikkis moved from the bed loft to the sink while Mari was cuddling Chat and Rinette, and not paying attention  
> \- in Europe, four kids is about where social pressure kicks in about there being too many, so, three. Maximum acceptable kids for Adrien, as his subconscious has been taught.  
> 


End file.
